July 31, 2012 – PAKISTAN– Prolonged and widespread power outage in most of Pakistan’s cities during scorching summer heat has triggered violent protests in most areas of the country. Coupled with hot and humid summer weather, the prolonged blackout has forced outraged citizens to take to the streets to protest the tough living conditions. The protests turned violent as some of the angry protesters reportedly attacked offices of the power supply department in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, damaging official and private properties. Offices of Pepco, the Pakistan Electric Power Company, were also attacked in Islamabad, Abbottabad, Charsadda, Okara, Multan, Mandi Bahauddin, Sialkot, and Sheikhupura and many of them were reportedly set ablaze. No loss of life was reported, but the roads were blocked till late night. Reports indicate that in some areas people face 12 to 14 hours of rolling blackouts, while the rural residents suffer up to 18 hours of power outage. On Friday, a powerful storm hit some of the country’s power plants, including one of Chashma Nuclear Power Plants and three other plants in Muzaffargarh, causing them to go fully or partly offline. In the meantime, Information Minister Zamar Kaira deflected the blame for the angry protests, saying they have been caused by “political maneuvering of the PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League (N))” rather than the prolonged outages. Pakistan’s lack of around 5,000 megawatts of electrical power has forced the government to implement a rolling blackout policy in a bid to prevent a total blackout. –Press TV

26,000 lose power in Cayman Islands:July 25, 2012 – A power outage in Grand Cayman, which started at 6:30 this morning and lasted until late afternoon, crippled the entire island Wednesday. Businesses across Grand Cayman were forced to draw operations to a halt due to the loss of electricity, with many telling their employees to stay home. Hospitals used backup generators to continue offering services, while police had to be dispatched to direct motorists on the street due to the blackout. Caribbean Utilities Company, the only electricity provider on the island, said the outage was caused by a fault in one of its substations which affected the entire system. –RJR

After looking at the headlines of the last few days and beyond, it appears that “the times of woe” is indeed accelerating at a very rapid rate. Won’t be very long before everything breaks down and people are stacking the dead on curbs like cordwood and vast swathes of land is turned into howling wastelands. I guess mankind has a high price to pay for their greed.

Reading about the power outages in India and Pakistan, and those that happen on a smaller scale here in N. America, bring to mind what a part of the problem is: too much stuff plugged into the system. This seems like a “duh” moment on my part since excessive demands are the primary cause for electrical grid crashes, but think about this – every gizmo and piece of electrical equipment plugged into an outlet and left on is adding to the burden on our obsolescent electrical grid (if ours in the US is out of date, I can only imagine how obsolete grids are in other parts of the world, no offense intended to anyone anywhere). Here at home I try to keep our usage down to a minimum by turning off lights and the computer when I’m not using them, but every cable/satellite box, every cell phone or tablet charging, every appliance and every gaming console is drawing juice. We need to become more aware of what we have running and take responsibility to minimize our juice use.

So Pakis burn an loot India waits for a fix who would you like to be around?
Storm takes out nuke power plant in pakistan? or? Are they removing something and have to limit power?
Just how my mind works.
Catherine

Alvin – have you heard about this new TV show that’s coming on called Revolution? It’s about all the power going out everywhere on the planet, or something like that. Could be interesting – or could be a bunch of hype.

these last events just show, how this kind of civilisation (progrowth) is just going to kill itself, as soon as the times get a little harder…only cancerous cells are growing constantly, and till people will not understand, that we need to share, but try to live in autarky.
we are so industrialised now, wouldn’t it be great, to just sit and smell the roses?
We are so rich, but still so poor.

I agree with you, alienrobbery. We as a species are so fixated on rush-rush-rush and do-do-do that we are literally killing ourselves. You comment regarding cancer reminds me of that scene in the first Matrix film when Agent Smith is giving Morpheus his take on humanity, that we are a virus. that’s not far from the truth – human civilization as we know it does function like a virus.

And yes, folks, our rush toward global upheavals on an unprecedented scale is accelerating. Use the time we still have to prepare for the worst, and if you don’t have to fall back on those preparations then count your blessings! But it will eventually catch up to us all…

You know David people act SPOILED. Whatever happened to batteries, candles, hand fans, campfires,cooking out – bathing in the river and or lakes, or rain-water, and I could go on and on. Spoiled people acting out. We are totally dependent on electricity to be sure, but to ACT OUT. These riots, this mentality is real but something I will never understand. I know some of these things are perhaps not available to all people. But, there are so many alternatives when the GRID goes kaput rather than act so spoiled.

It never ceases to amaze me that people in the West are so fixated on our toys that people riot and act out when they can’t get the latest gizmo when they want it; just look at the long lines whenever a new i-anything comes out. to be technologically dependent is to be vulnerable, and while I am not one of those who advocate returning to the Stone Age I am certainly one who states that just because we can do or have something doesn’t mean that we should. Our society has taught for so long that you are only worth what you have that most people have enslaved themselves to the current system. We need to return to a simpler life less reliant on technology and corporations and more reliant on self-sufficiency, but this very concept is anathema to the consumerist mentality. Soon people will be bereft of the conveniences, and woe unto them that haven’t prepared tehmselves for that in the least.

It is always been so bad when every problem is getting bigger specially the supply of electricity,lot of people around the world really annoy when electricity it down,in Finland country electricity services and other things about electricity is smoothly running and developing for the sake of all consumer.